Hack your Cannon

[HungLikeJesus]

For your potato canon?

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus

For your potato canon?

Sadly, I had to retire the PC as it wasn't seen as pc. But xoB raised my hopes with his misleading thread title, the taunting vixen.

I have a Canon (one N)A 10 IS and I hope I can get it going. May have to wait until next week though.

BigV! show us the images!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

I have a Canon (one N)A 10 IS and I hope I can get it going.

Oops, sorry... I have Nikon and Olympus.

[Tree Fae]

Dang, Mine isn't listed either. That really looked neat. I do get great pictures from mine already. Will have to get some recent city shots I took this weekend. Got a few interesting ones.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Oops, sorry... I have Nikon and Olympus.

I thought that was just a slight stutter.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

snip--
BigV! show us the images!

At last I have made progress!

Originally Posted by BigV

Ok. Question. I am trying to setup the exposure bracketing. I have a choice to select the number of "csteps", and my current setting is 3. Also, the step size (1/3EV) is currently set to 3. I press the shutter release and the camera starts processing the script, produces 7 exposures, then says "script finished". I switch to display mode and review the shots and they're all identical. They all look exactly the same, and the max info display that shows exposure, fstop, ISO, white balance, etc., all the values are the same. Only the exposure number changes. And the moving part of what I shot changes, the live tv screen. I *know* I'm getting seven shots. But there's no change from one to the next. Nothing really to show, yet.

This is working now.

I solved the problem (user error or poor defaults, take your pick) by debugging the program. There are two main variables that are user-settable, the number of steps and the step size. I chose the smallest step size and a large number of steps. My thinking was that I wanted the finest granularity for the blending process. This was overkill and my choices for the settings just overwhelmed the camera.

Additionally, I moved a third variable, the delay between shots in tenths of a second, to the minimum value: 1. Another good idea for what makes up a good HDR image, minimum changes in the scene, but the kiss of death for this setup. The reason is the scripting happening in the camera is all quick and dirty, the commands are words for button pushes. That's how I finally debugged my problems. And by choosing 0.1 seconds to wait between exposures, I didn't give the camera time to finish capturing the image, writing it to the card, and getting ready for the next exposure. It would wait the 0.1 second, then "press" the next "button" to change the exposure, but the "press" would be invalid since the screen hadn't returned to the state where "right" meant "move the exposure indicator one unit to the right". This was a very valuable epiphany.

Once I understood this, I saw another place where this was failing. By selecting Manual mode, I doomed the script to failure. Manually, I can change the exposure by altering the shutter speed or the aperture. But the script, as written, only chooses the exposure compensation button, the "delete" button (and let me tell you, that was a bit of a surprise to see "delete" as a button name and not a command. Nevertheless.) and then presses "right" or "left". The results are not as predictable in Manual mode.

So, I tried it in Av (aperture priority mode) and Tv (shutter speed priority mode) and in P (program mode). In these modes, the "delete" (exposure compensation) button does move the cursor to the exposure compensation place on the screen where "right" and "left" decrease and increase the exposure (respectively). Now we're getting somewhere!